Week 15: Through the Looking-Glass

The Red King and the Red
Queen

Reading
time: 5 minutes. Word count: 900 words.

The main thing you will notice in the looking-glass world is that inanimate objects
come to life. We always say that a clock has a "face" - but in the looking-glass
world, you might find that the clock face is really a face, and that it is grinning
at you! (remember how Scrooge saw Marley's face looking at him from a door knocker).

In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had
jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did
was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased
to find that there was a real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had
left behind. 'So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room,' thought
Alice: 'warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from
the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here,
and can't get at me!'

Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be
seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the
rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next
the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you
know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face
of a little old man, and grinned at her.

'They don't keep this room so tidy as the other,' Alice thought
to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among
the cinders: but in another moment, with a little 'Oh!' of surprise, she was
down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about,
two and two!

'Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,' Alice said (in a
whisper, for fear of frightening them), 'and there are the White King and the
White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel -- and here are two castles walking
arm in arm -- I don't think they can hear me,' she went on, as she put her head
closer down, 'and I'm nearly sure they can't see me. I feel somehow as if I
were invisible -- '

Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and
made her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over
and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen
next.

'It is the voice of my child!' the White Queen cried out as
she rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the cinders.
'My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!' and she began scrambling wildly up the
side of the fender.

'Imperial fiddlestick!' said the King, rubbing his nose, which
had been hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a LITTLE annoyed with the Queen,
for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.

Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little
Lily was nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen
and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter.

The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the
air had quite taken away her breath and for a minute or two she could do nothing
but hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had recovered her breath
a little, she called out to the White King, who was sitting sulkily among the
ashes, 'Mind the volcano!'

'What volcano?' said the King, looking up anxiously into the
fire, as if he thought that was the most likely place to find one.

'Blew -- me -- up,' panted the Queen, who was still a little out
of breath. 'Mind you come up -- the regular way -- don't get blown up!'

Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from
bar to bar, till at last she said, 'Why, you'll be hours and hours getting to
the table, at that rate. I'd far better help you, hadn't I?' But the King took
no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could neither hear her
nor see her.

So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more
slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn't take his breath away:
but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well dust him
a little, he was so covered with ashes.

She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life
such a face as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible
hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but his eyes
and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder and rounder, till
her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let him drop upon the floor.

'Oh! PLEASE don't make such faces, my dear!' she cried out,
quite forgetting that the King couldn't hear her. 'You make me laugh so that
I can hardly hold you! And don't keep your mouth so wide open! All the ashes
will get into it -- there, now I think you're tidy enough!' she added, as she
smoothed his hair, and set him upon the table near the Queen.

Questions. Make sure you can answer these questions
about what you just read:

what is different about the chess pieces in the looking -glass world?

what does the White Queen think it was that carried her up to the
table?

Modern Languages
MLLL-2003. World Literature: Frametales. Laura Gibbs, Ph.D.
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Page last updated:
October 9, 2004 12:48 PM